Chapter 5
Keisha reversed, pulled the big truck around into a circle, then slowly headed down the driveway.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw something and almost hit the brakes to stop.
Jaxon stood here, out of the way, watching her.
On impulse, she lifted a hand and waved at him, not surprised but still disappointed when he didn’t wave back.
She thought about him a lot as she returned to town.
She probably shouldn’t have come without notifying him first, but at least their initial face-to-face meeting after her divorce papers had been served was over.
Now if only she had a good excuse or explanation for why she just couldn’t handle this new Jaxon.
He was definitely no longer the witty man she knew from before—or at least not with her.
Maybe he seemed different because she had changed too.
Maybe they were just strangers. They’d gotten married very quickly, and she’d been worried it was a mistake right from the get-go.
Tiffany was right in that Keisha hadn’t really given him a chance.
When he’d come back such a different person, she immediately ran to the safety of what she thought she knew, and somehow that just made her feel even worse than she did when she had first laid eyes on him again.
She’d known he was at the Haven, but seeing him there hadn’t brought any recognition.
Nothing of the new Jaxon remotely resembled the old him.
She felt she was meeting a stranger. It was horrible.
She understood that Jaxon wanted to immediately pick up their marriage as if nothing tragic had happened to him, just going back to the way they had been in those few short months before he had been deployed.
Yet, for her, she didn’t know this Jaxon.
She wasn’t bothered about the prosthetic, although she was still surprised that any device would support such a burly man.
In fact, she wasn’t bothered by any of his physical injuries, even though she didn’t have anywhere near the complete info on that.
She was, however, more worried about his psychological trauma.
She had grown up with a father who had been extremely traumatized by his military years, and Keisha just didn’t think she could handle Jaxon’s traumas too—or at least that’s what she told herself.
Tiffany’s voice came in Keisha’s head, asking, So why marry a man who was in the military?
Keisha sighed. She hadn’t been open and honest enough in her own mind to confront whatever was going on in her own thoughts. But now, it all stared her in the face, giving her an opportunity to do something about it, but what?
She’d already filed the divorce papers. She had already broken everybody’s heart in this process, including her own. Going back didn’t seem to be an option. But was it?
On the way back into town, she couldn’t stop thinking about Jaxon and whether she was doing the right thing.
Sure, she could halt the process but not before she had the time needed to get to know him again, and maybe that was more of an issue.
Yet everything inside her said that time wouldn’t help, and, if not time, maybe she was better off just getting the divorce over with. At least that’s what she told herself.
As soon as she hit the highway, she picked up speed and headed back to the clinic. By the time she parked her work truck, switched over to her personal car, she already felt the effects of the long day, and getting home was even harder.
Entering the house, she called out to her sister, “Hey, Kelly. I’m home.” Her two rescue dogs, Harley and Homer raced to greet her, their barks and whines and twisting bodies always such a joy to see and experience. Particularly when their joy was at seeing her.
The loud sounds of Kelly’s wheelchair being pushed around the house let Keisha know exactly where her sister was and what progress she was making. She smiled as she looked at her younger sister. “How was your day?”
“The usual,” she muttered, with that same dismissive wave of her hand. “Not a whole lot I can do.”
“I know,” Keisha agreed, tamping down her irritation at her sister’s constant lack of cheerfulness.
Kelly was almost ten years younger, so she didn’t have the wisdom of living on her own or of holding a job.
She had had their parents stolen from her at a young age.
Keisha knew all that and reminded herself of it daily.
Still, Kelly had much available to her to make her life a little easier.
However, her personality didn’t allow for that, didn’t make for an easy life for Kelly or for Keisha—or for Jaxon either.
In fact, Kelly often sported negative criticism and …
just plain nastiness because of the situation she was in now.
She’d been in an ugly car accident a few years back, a car accident where they’d lost their parents.
It had been hard on both of them. The real kicker was finding out that Kelly wouldn’t walk again.
It had torn apart the sisters for the longest time, but they were to the point now where this was the life they had.
Keisha had accepted it, but Kelly hadn’t.
Keisha smiled at her and asked, “Don’t suppose you started anything for dinner, did you?”
“No, I wasn’t feeling very well,” she replied immediately.
She nodded. “Yeah, I hear you,” she murmured.
“Yeah, … you hear me, but you don’t understand me,” she snapped.
She looked over at Kelly and sighed. “Look. I’m really tired, and I’m not in the mood.”
She glared at her and snapped, “I’m not in the mood either.” And, with that, she pushed her wheelchair out of the living room and headed to her first-floor bedroom.
With a sigh, Keisha walked upstairs to her bedroom, where she proceeded to strip out of her dirty clothes and quickly had a shower.
She would have to do something about food for the two of them because Kelly sure wouldn’t.
She had a lot of qualities that were really lovely and helpful, but, when she was in this mood, absolutely nothing was lovely or helpful about her.
And yet Keisha couldn’t judge Kelly for her attitude because Keisha wasn’t the one sitting in a wheelchair, looking at the ruins of her life.
At one point in time, Kelly had planned on being a fashion designer and had had remarkable success with some of her early designs, but the accident had changed all that.
She could potentially still go back to that, but she no longer had the strength to get through most of her days, and the evenings were even rougher.
Knowing that it was even harder on her sister than on her, Keisha bit down on her frustration, quickly dressed in yoga pants and a T-shirt, then headed downstairs to the kitchen to start dinner.
The dogs followed her into the kitchen looking for their own dinners, particularly as she could see their dog bowls were completely empty.
After feeding them, she called out, “What do you want for food?”
“I don’t care,” Kelly snapped, and then she groaned. “Sorry, Keish. … I’m not trying to be a bitch.”
“No, I get it. You’re having a rough day,” she replied.
“Yeah, well, … seems as if I’m only having rough days these days.”
Keisha didn’t say anything to that. What could she say? Her sister had also refused to go back to the doctors’ appointments, whether therapist or shrink or her medical doctors, saying they were useless.
And should she return? Keisha wondered. All the docs wanted to do was poke and prod and ask her questions that she didn’t have any answers for.
And that might be fair enough, yet, if no answers were there to be found, then why continue this useless process?
But if any new medicine, new technology, new anything could help Kelly, then they needed that opportunity to put it to good use.
Keisha wanted Kelly to get the help she needed.
Not that her sister ever saw it that way.
Looking in the fridge, Keisha decided on pasta, and, with the water on boil, she ended up making a simple carbonara.
By the time Kelly was back in the kitchen, sniffing the aroma, she muttered, “Not pasta again.”
Keisha froze and frowned at Kelly. “Yeah, pasta again. I’m tired, Kel. It’s been a long day at the clinic. How about just a thank you for having cooked anything?”
Her sister rolled her eyes at her. “You always make it sound as if I’m such a trial.”
“Sometimes you are. … I put in a long day too.”
“Sure, driving around, checking on llamas,” she said enviously.
“Yeah, llamas that were tired, hot, cranky, terrified, and needed to be shorn, even though it wasn’t exactly something I was thinking I would help with today,” she shared, as she rolled her shoulders, realizing that she hadn’t used these muscles in a very long time.
“And, of course, you probably saw your … husband,” Kelly muttered in a mocking tone, chewing on her words.
Keisha sighed at that. Kelly had never gotten along well with Jaxon, and Jaxon had very little tolerance for her either. “Yes, Jaxon was there,” she stated, hiding her face. “And, no, I didn’t really talk to him.”
“How did he look?”
After a moment of thinking about it, she shared, “Fit, more physically fit than I remember him being. … He looked good. He wasn’t very happy to see me though.”
“Why would he be?” Kelly asked, followed by a laugh. “You made a decision that he didn’t like.”
She winced at that and nodded. “Potentially that was it, and honestly, I don’t know that I made the right decision either.” The words popped out before she had a chance to pull them back.
Kelly stared at her. “You’re not thinking about going back after all that, are you?”
“After all what?” she asked, turning to look at her sister. “I’m not even sure how I came around to that decision in the first place.”
Kelly laughed. “Of course you are,” she declared, still snickering. “Just the fact that you see him once and are all over him again is just unbelievable.”